Chinese Soil Doctor with an Ambitious Dream

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  During our childhood, we were familiar with songs where soil was described as our mother to show our appreciation for what it brings to us. And there’re also Chinese poems with the same story told by generations after generations: mother-like soil supports us and plays a paramount role in our life. However, as such a critical source of lifeline, our mother of soil, is facing a crisis of existence.
  Soil crisis calls for a savior
  On Apr. 17, 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) jointly issued the Communique on Survey of National Soil Pollution, shortly after which the MLR announced the Communique on 2013 Land and Resources in China on Apr. 22. This is the first time that a survey on national soil pollution has been conducted in China. According to the survey, soil landscape in China is generally not optimistic; to specifically put it, soil is more severely polluted in parts of areas, farmland quality is highly concerned and the problem with abandoned industrial and mining soil is salient. What’s more, nearly 20% of farmland is polluted across China and 60% of water is in poorer or extremely poor quality.
  The originally sound farmland ends up to be barren. Poor yield means that land cannot bring in productive harvest for us any more. Degradation of land, soil pollution, earth gradually losing its original appearance, a year-on-year drop in production… While what’s the most blamed for is fertilizer, herbicide and other commonly used chemical agents. Farmers spray fertilizer or herbicide on their own field in hopes of keeping their crops growing better and stronger; it never occurs to them that this should do so huge harm to earth. Of them, herbicide is the most detrimental because its residue can turn polluted soil into "cancer field" (a term used to describe the arable land polluted by fertilizer residues) influenced by many years of accumulation. Such cancer field can be largely found in Heilongjiang Province and China’s other northwestern regions where farmers suffer from difficulties in crop changing. In an interview by China Central Television 7, Du Chuanqiu, a farmer from Neijiang, Heilongjiang Province, said, "Approximately 2~2.5 t of soybeans could be produced on 1 Shang (equal to 15 mus) of field previously, while merely around 0.5 t can be got per hectare." In this connection, it’s extremely hard for farmers to offset the land cost.
  When herbicide first emerged, no one realized its such huge damage except one named Dang Yongfu. With some doubt, he came to research into herbicide and later discovered its hazard to both land and crops.   Speaking of him, considerable numbers of farmers may know of him because he showed himself up almost as a savior every time soil problems were found in some areas, which rendered him some of a land knight. He managed to relive soil like conjuration and increase crop output, relieving quantities of farmers who suffered from low yield or continuous production decline. And Dang Yongfu’s secret lied in herbicide safener. With highly-active degrading enzyme as its main constituent, such safener is able to degrade organic phosphorous molecule in residues of pesticide and herbicide, decompose insoluble toxic elements into non-toxic and hydro-soluble ones, restore production environment of microbes, improve ecological balance of soil, prevent soil from hardening and enhance soil’s ability of water-retaining and fertilizer preserving and reinvigorate soil so as to maintain crops growing safely.
  But when it comes to R&D of herbicide safener, Dang Yongfu who was born in a farmer’s family has a good deal to complain.
  Striving against all odds during start-up
  Mentioning his start-up experience at that time, the most used word of Dang Yongfu was stubbornness. For him, it’s this trait that has helped him to make it throughout the 20-year start-up in which he has undergone a variety of setbacks and sufferings.
  Dang Yongfu was born in a common farmer’s family in a village in Shangshui County, Zhoukou, Henan Province. It’s a big luxury at one time for him to have three meals per day, yet which hasn’t hampered his pursuit of dream.
  In 1988, doubt came in his mind at his first touch with herbicide: since herbicide can kill weed, does it affect growth of crops? Hence, he did a contrast test on his own contracted land. The findings indicated that the patches where herbicide was applied produced grain 20% less than those on which manual labor was used, which verified his doubt. Till that moment, a dream grew secretly in the depth of his heart. He was steadfast and resolved to find a way of controlling side-effects of herbicide so as to benefit farmers from an increase in grain output and ensure safety of food on the table. With this dream held in his heart, Dang Yongfu embarked on a long path of start up.
  In the twinkling of an eye, two years has elapsed. In Oct. 1990, Dang Yongfu took his post in Zhoukou Yinhe Biological Products Plant where he met many agricultural specialists during his business. He longed for guidance from these specialists, however, they shrugged off upon learning about his schooling and identity. He had no choice but to buy piles of professional books with the money saved by tightening his belt and work hard at them in his spare time. Some books were quite beyond him, as a result, he bought textbooks immediately and deeply buried his head in the basics. After years of industrious learning and repeated hands-on experience, he was equipped with a better understanding of principles of pesticide and herbicide and so on. When it came to 1995, Dang Yongfu resolutely chose to start his own business. Therefore, he borrowed usury and founded a chemical plant to develop products that can curb side effects of herbicide.   Just like a saying "Failure is the mother of success", a favorable turn eventually surfaced following countless failures in his independent development. At that time, Dang Yongfu heard that an expert named Chen Chang with Shenyang Research Institute of Chemical Industry developed pharmaceutical intermediate, which suddenly gave him some hint to control side effects of herbicide by developing a product using such intermediate as an inductor. At the thought, he drove at once to visit and ask the great master for counseling his endeavors. The 74-year old Chen Chang was moved and joined Dang Yongfu in his R&D team. However, it never occurred to him that Chen Chang passed away when overcoming technical difficulties. While in order to establish the production line in favor of Chen Chang’s design Dang borrowed as much as 1 million yuan of loan. And to make it worse, no technical materials was available because of Chen’s abrupt death. After the completion of the memorial service, Dang saw some sheets of cigarette case paper occasionally under the mat Chen once used. Scattered on the paper was only some rambling figures. The next day, when sighing helplessly over the newly installed production line in the workshop, the abandoned cigar case paper suddenly came into Dang’s mind. He swiftly retrieved the sheets to the finance room like a cherished treasure, noting there’s somewhat correspondence between certain data and price and consumption of raw materials registered on the accounting book. Then he worked with technicians and found out fermentation temperature and time from the paper, but much data remained unresolved.
  For the following consecutive 100 days and nights, Dang was living and working in the workshop, finally recovering the production technique of that intermediates. Unfortunately, it’s at the very occasion that the recently established production line was sealed up by the court arising from the suing of the creditor. Consequently, the company had to be declared in bankruptcy. Dang Yongfu’s dream shattered for the first time.
  After a period of drift and displacement, Dang Yongfu renewed his journey of dream in 2001. Once, compounders added the pharmaceutical intermediates first developed by Chen Chang to herbicide additives by mistake, which proved surprisingly remarkable in output increase after being launched to the market according to feedbacks of users. And the sales surged by three fold accordingly. However, claims from customers took them aback when the whole company was gathering in celebration of this. As a consequence, the product effects sharply fell behind compared with the previous year. Loss of credit was devastating to a company. To solve this, Dang Yongfu went to talk with heads of departments and identified the cause: mistaken adding of pharmaceutical intermediate to the batches of products sold last year. He then adjusted formula promptly and prepared a batch of new appraised products, indicating an unique function in effectively controlling side effects of herbicide. Additionally, he also went to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in person for a test, for if it was demonstrated successfully on the "roof of the world", it meant that the function would not be constricted by geography and climate.   In Qinghai, he worked there as long as three years, testing repeatedly, adjusting formula and ultimately finding the best safe mixing ratio between degrading bacteria and herbicide. He also adopted technology of directional induction and time control to blend herbicide additive and herbicide so that it would prevent and control side effects of herbicide in an effective manner while not affecting weeding effects. The technology made up for the blank at home and abroad, gaining 6 patents. The tests showed that it could enhance per unit grain output by 10%. This time, Dang Yongfu eventually made it and the dream was within his reach.
  On his journey back to Zhengzhou from Qinghai, Dang Yongfu decided to call the new product Naian (interpreted as withstanding long-term security as conveyed by its Chinese pronunciation), for he held that, the country could be kept stable if there’s adequate grain which would in turn secure the country." Faced with failure and blow one after another, he didn’t fall down but got to his feet once again after setbacks. Filled with his dream, the implication of Naian also brought him closer to his dream.
  Till now, dream has cast light on real life. Naian herbicide additive has provided assistance for more than 8 million mus of land in China for free, saving accumulative losses up to over 200 million yuan for farmers between 2005 and 2012. This also won great reputation for him. He has been regarded as Chinese soil doctor and chief specialist on national pesticide residue interpretation and international patent strategic research by the agriculture community.
  Safe grain going globe
  Naian herbicide additive has opened a path to his dream, which kept him stay firm on his next step. He then focused his attention to solving fertilizer-related pollution and invented innovatively Dalishi technology of improving the effectiveness of fertilizer which was conducive to preventing fertilizer from hardening and activating fertilizer residues retained in soil. Test data applied nationwide demonstrates such technology is capable of reducing fertilizer by 30% above. Allowing that China’s use of fertilizer has exceeded more than 51 million tons in 2007, an annual reduction of fertilizer can reach 15.3 million tons in China if calculated at a saving of 30%; it’s equivalent to a conservation of 23,715 million tons of coal indirectly. If such technology is to be promoted, dependence of soil on chemical fertilizers can be removed, which will serve as a new-typed means to prevent air, water and soil pollution.   In addition, Dang Yongfu has another greater dream to let everyone have access to safe food. Therefore, he has established a brand "process farm" whose main mission is to "build process safety food" as organic agriculture products free of pollution, pesticide hazard and residues. The process farm is divided into four sections: creating safe food so that humankind has safe and healthy food; building a base of agricultural talents for training and exporting of agricultural personnel; setting up a one-stop base for nursing the elderly as a platform for supporting the aged in an ecological manner; and building a medical care base to provide basis and guarantee for supporting the aged in an ecological way and building beautiful countryside.
  The process safety food refers to treating soil and conducting prevention and control throughout agricultural production by using Naian’s core biotechnology such as technology of preventing and controlling herbicide side effects and soil pollution control technology, Dalishi technology of improving the effectiveness of fertilizer, technology of controlling heavy metals in soil, technology of pesticide residue degradation. The agricultural crops produced in the process is what we call "process safety food". Currently, products in this area are represented by process rice, process flour, process tea, process wolfberry, which are all tested to be above standards of green products and in line with the lower limit of organic food standards.
  After being treated by Naian biotechnology, pesticide residues and heavy metals in these "process agricultural products" have decreased significantly. Among them, the test on Naian "Process rice" by an international authoritative food safety institution, namely, SGS, indicates that in case of the minimum measurable pesticide content of 0.01 mg/kg, four pesticide residues contained in Naian process rice all display "Not Detected". Residues of Deltamethrin, Chlorpyrifos, Triazophos, Chlorpyrifos-methyl specified in the national food safety reference standard (NY / T419-2007) is ≤0.5 mg/kg, ≤0.1 mg/kg, ≤0.05 mg/kg and ≤5 mg/kg respectively. That is to say, detected pesticide residues of Naian process rice is below the national standard and reach the lower limit.
  To fulfill the dream to make all have access to safe food, the Naian Group led by Dang Yongfu is moving towards the world step by step. As for him, what Naian is engaged in now is not merely a certain products. More importantly, it’s committed to constructing a global agricultural safety engineering system, building a modern information-based bio-agriculture industrial chain, i.e., accelerating development of china’s process farms, achieving process control on environmental pollution and food safety so as to realize transparent consumption of green food. The entire Naian Group will closely center around the eight-word work guideline, say, soil, fertilizer, water, seed, air, preservation, control and labor. The system protects soil, water and air from pollution imposed by secondary disasters resulting from agricultural means of production, controls ecological safety from the source and exerts 8S process control ranging increased grain output all the way to food safety. In addition, the Group has also progressively engaged in a series of tasks in the aspects below: monitoring agricultural safety and soil pollution as well as research on soil pollution control; manufacturing series products related to control of secondary disasters caused by agricultural means of production; establishing international standards for process agriculture and facilitating wholesale transaction of process food. Naian’s inventions, say, technology of preventing and controlling herbicide side effects and Dalishi technology of improving the effectiveness of fertilizer have been accredited by the International Ecological Safety Institute. Naian will also collaborate with the agency to set up agricultural safety monitoring centers and agricultural safety schools and carry out accreditation of process ecological agriculture. Furthermore, it has also worked to speed up soil pollution control and food safety process control as well as transparent consumption of green food.   In the future, Naian Group is to be developed into a renowned grain purchase group. Once the aim is accomplished, food processing companies, seed companies, fertilizer firms, pesticide establishments, farms, agricultural cooperatives, major planting farmers will get themselves involved in standardized services on international ecological safety process farmers in a row together with Naian, to share the platform of IESCO (International Ecological Safety Collaborative Organization) international resources and make concerted actions to promote the undertaking of sustained grain increase and food safety by relying on the general guideline of Naian’s technology of soil pollution control.
  When many people are completing nothing, Dang Yongfu has opened the gate of his dream to make Chinese grain safe and accessible to people. Numerous failures and trials has brought his initial dream closer and closer and now the future prospect has already unfolded. From China to the world, the story about Dang Yongfu, a soil doctor hasn’t ended yet; it’s just a start.
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